Sr Francis McCarthy

Francis McCarthy was born Ann (Annie) McCarthy in Dublin Ireland on December 12, 1849. Her father Nicholas was a bootmaker. She left Ireland in 1875 aged twenty-five, at the request of Dr Matthew Quinn, Bishop of Bathurst, to enter the Sisters of St Joseph at Bathurst New South Wales. After disembarking from the Ann Duthie in Sydney, she arrived at The Vale (a small settlement outside Bathurst, now known as Perthville) on May 1, 1875. Known at The Vale as Sr Francesca, she was professed on Low Sunday April 7, 1877, renewed her vows December 1878 and made Final Vows on Easter Sunday, 1879.

Francis has a unique place in the history of the origins of the Diocesan Sisters of St Joseph, as she was one of the Irish postulants left at Perthville with Hyacinth Quinlan, when fourteen Sisters decided to return to Adelaide and Mother Mary MacKillop in February, 1876. Her decision to remain at The Vale was not made freely as the young novice had made her intentions clear to Sr Joseph Dwyer, her Superior, who returned to Adelaide.

S. Francesca they sent back to The Vale. We saw her and she begged hard to come with us, but of course I could not take her, so she said she would tell the Bp. (Bishop) that she was determined to adhere to Mother Mary and the Constitutions and would go and earn her passage money and pay it back

Letter J. Dwyer to M.MacKillop, Feb 2, 1876 ¹

The young novice was to remain a member of the Diocesan Josephites for the remainder of her life. The first twelve years of her life were spent at “The Vale” where she came under the influence of Fr Julian. After Fr Julians' final retreat to the Sisters, Bishop Quinn appointed her assistant to Benedict Hickey in December 1881 (Crowley, 72).² “She left for Hobart mission May 87.” (Perthville Register, 1914, 15)³ Twelve years later as the leader of the five foundation Sisters, Sr Francis stayed with Mary MacKillop at the convent in North Sydney before embarking on the sea voyage to Launceston.  

Francis McCarthy was regarded as a highly cultivated lady and a most successful teacher. Archbishop Simonds, in speaking at her funeral attributed the rapid increase in the Westbury school to her “zeal and charity” (Standard, Feb 15 1940).⁴ In 1889 Francis, in the company of another professed sister and a postulant founded the convent at Hamilton on Forth, and within two more months had founded an additional convent at Ulverstone. A little over a year and again Sr Francis had opened a fourth convent at Devonport. Within a period of four years, she had established four convents.

Francis was well loved, particularly in Northern Tasmania, where she was regarded as a saint. A miracle attributed to Francis occurred in 1893 or 1895, when a little girl named Williams punctured her eyeball while trying to untie a knot from her shoelace with a fork. The local doctor declared that there was no hope of the child regaining her sight, but Sr Francis bound her eye with the brown scapular, and in a short time the child could see as well as ever. This event was reported in The Messenger. Mr Jack Crowe in a letter to the editor of The Standard speaks of Sr Francis as “the pious and saintly Sr Francis, beloved of all children.” ⁵At her funeral Simonds spoke of Francis’ gaiety and spontaneity which enabled her to “use the most ordinary things of life to elevate her own mind and the minds of others to supernatural things”.⁶